Hope not Hate's response to us - play the man, not the ball

We have noticed a fresh line of attack developing on our work to expose Hope not Hate. Never ones
to push the envelope on originality, Hope not Hate's minions have hit on the entirely unoriginal idea of condemning what we write because Dave Briggs - me! - has as Facebook friends people it claims are from the far-right.

Playing the man and not the ball is an old established favourite of Hope not Hate, so we'd like to be perfectly clear about a few things.

• We support UKIP, a democratic, non-racist, non-fascist party.
• We do not support the EDL, the BNP, the NF or any of the other splinter groups from them or any other far-right groups. 
• We do not support or endorse violence in politics whether from the right or the left.
• We accept all friend requests on Facebook without endorsing the views held by those making the request. Hope not Hate has no shortage of Facebook 'likes' from far-right activists.
• We sometimes highlight inaccuracies in Hope not Hate reports on EDL and BNP activities. This does not imply support. The truth is always the truth, and a lie is always a lie no matter who tells it or for what cause.

We endeavour to be accurate in all of our postings. Although we like to have a bit of fun at Hope not Hate's expense - they take themselves ever so seriously - we are not in the business of spreading lies or disinformation. We do speculate on events and their causes, but we attempt to do so honestly. Where reports of Hope not Hate meetings are published, they are reports which we believe to be accurate from people whom we believe were actually present. 'We' are a small team of like minded individuals who work hard to expose the machinations of the far-left - the groups like Hope not Hate and UAF of which Labour MP Simon Danczuk said "The hard right threatens social cohesion and sows ugly seeds of division. The politics of the hard Left does much of the same.”

We accept as true the following:

• Not everybody who supports the EDL is a football hooligan or fascist thug
• When someone aligned with the far-right says something, it is not necessarily untrue
• When someone aligned with Hope not Hate says something, it is not necessarily true

Finally, if you believe something we have published is incorrect, please draw it to our attention and if you can prove it wrong, we will correct it. Unlike Hope not Hate, we will not block you from our site and remove the posting as we believe in democratic debate.

We must be doing something right. 21,000 page views in 6 weeks, and a daily reach of between 3,000 and 11,000 people on Facebook. Not bad.